The Lineage

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.


The Lineage
By 11


Chapter 20
Wolves: The History

Blood red eyes stare into me, a dark abyss bubbling over in terror turning ice-black caverns into crimson swirls that suck me in – and I feel the sting as my eyes begin to burn.

I blink back a tearing as I feel my eyes scorch across the orb front and back, burning balls of fire – no doubt they must look red again… but I’m still falling, and then the wood floor shocks beneath me!

Wasn’t I in the dirt trench? But it’s wood beneath my feet, Sasuke’s missing and there’s a tiny figure running alongside a taller one, both boys – brothers? The younger boy turns and his eyes send a shudder through me.

Dark expressive onyx eyes reflective as polished obsidian look straight through me, feather-black hair, raven but shorter but softer and younger. It’s Darkeyes… but a child? He looks…

- My eyes follow him as he turns to catch up to the taller figure, older brother – he looks--

The figures disappear to the shadows I can’t see beyond and I start at the lukewarm feeling of liquid suddenly trailing under my feet, splattering against my heels – looking down thick red pours from behind me.

I whip around, though my feet never lost their place, smeared in red; and there are two figures. Neither are the ones from before, older, a man and a woman, already dead. Sasuke lies nearby, and even my parasite rears back with a hiss at the scene.

His body lies small and broken, crimson flowing easily from each wound, heavy across his back, his leg is broken in two places and the bones stick out at the knee, the patella is fractured.

Even if he healed he would never walk again – but he won’t, because he’s gaping mouth open and struggling to breathe, because his lung is punctured and filling with blood, his throat is slit though not yet too deep.

But that’s impossible, because Sasuke is a vampire – and Sasuke still moves – none of this is real. I want to grab and steady myself but I can’t, even though it feels like I’m shaking so badly.

I want to scream but my throat’s stuck shut, I want to move, to end his pain, to help – I don’t know but I can’t move even one muscle, and all I can do is stare in horror and disbelieve my eyes.

It’s a lie. It’s obviously a lie.

That other figure appears, the brother, and he kneels by Sasuke, and touches his head so tenderly, so comfortingly… but that hand is thick with blood, and it runs down his arm and stains the child’s clothes and hair.

Sick fuck… get the hell away from Sasuke…

Then Darkeyes really is before me – ruby eyes glaring into me with such ferocity it takes me a minute to realize it before his hand shoots out to catch my throat.

That silver velvet voice coils around me with an icy grip threatening to choke me more than the fingers gripping tight around my neck. “Get out.”

What?

“Get out of my head!”

“You’re the one who sucked me in – jerk.” I choke out to remind him testily, but his hand just tightens on my throat and his eyes seem to turn a brighter red glaring, burning.

I feel my eyes respond and if it keeps up I think I could lose my eyes. They’re too hot, my vision is starting to look like bleached colors of gray and white – an impossibly pale white – and I can’t hold on.

`

I hear myself scream before I’m aware of the pain of the sound ripping from my throat. My body falls, as if roughly shoved backward, but I was half-lying down already and I land on soft earth…

I stare up at the trench ceiling, and I can hear Sasuke’s calming breath – his blood is still flowing in his veins but it’s already starting to slow again. “Stay the fuck out of my head.” His voice growls low and angry.

What the hell was that?

“What happened? What was that?!” I demand, my eyes focusing on him, dark eyes still boring into me as if I’ve committed some terrible sin.

“Sasuke,” I growl, after a silence, “What the fuck was that?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” He spits out, still holding himself back against the trench wall, regarding me like some kind of venomous snake, wary and mistrustful.

“You pulled me in first!” I spit back, “What happened with your eyes before? Mine do that too – didn’t you say you’d start explaining things?”

“I did.” He still glares, saying nothing more.

“Well?” I demand, my body hot and pulsing through me, I’m upset, I’m horny, and nothing is helping anything! His silence, his – unjust – anger just fuels and aggravates that condition!

Damn it! He could just explain already?! It’s not like it would take a twenty page essay or something!

Or he could just let himself get fucked for once!

That too!

Not necessarily in that order!

Yeah-!! Wait, what?

He shifts on his side as if to rise, and go, his eyes leaving and avoiding mine. “Hey!” I start angrily lurching my body forward toward him, “I’ve been really patient! I’ve been asking since the beginning of this excursion!”

He scowls in my direction – oh he’s being petulant about the head-thing?! That’s why he’s not telling me?! Stubborn silly--! --child!!

I feel the growl at the back of my throat and my hand closes around his arm, preventing him from moving farther, his ireful eyes lock on mine. “Just tell me already!! It’s fucking annoying!”

“Not now,” he hisses, a cool hand slides up my neck fisting into my hair, his forehead pressed to mine, abyss-like eyes boring in. “Not yet.”

Then his lips devour mine, cool, soft, and pliable, and his skin shudders against mine. My arms a life of their own, possessed to wind around his body, tug him toward me.

He stiffens slightly before forcing himself to relax and cool flesh turns warm, lips and mouth hot with the pulse of life.

His arms shake slightly as they hold me tightly, something between the desire to push away and the instinctive need to stay as close as possible.

This time his tongue enters me first, willing pliable and turning quickly into something heated and drawing. The metallic taste of him curls around me, slipping to my insides and ripping up every callus so I’m a gourd of his essence.

My tongue strokes against his and prods pointedly at the underside, flat against the soft I can practically taste the texture of his blood racing through a thousand tiny veins.

His torso pressed flat to mine, skin to skin, before I realized it his cools hands have edged my shirt up to my arms.

I move quickly with him to shed my top layer, my lips press back insistently to his. He meets me without hesitation and I drown myself in his dark metal and winter taste.

My hips roll against him and he moans into me, tongue pressed hard to the roof of my mouth, hands gripping me tighter to control his shaking.

My pants are already too tight, and I grind against him again drawing a second moan; my hands slipping lower for purchase on his hips, dark cloth a barrier to groping fingers.

Why are we still half-dressed?

With a growl my fingers sink below the hem and tugging him to me, I undo the holders and thrust the garment down to his thighs. He hisses with a start – why does he bother wearing such tight pants anyway?

His arms untangle from my body long enough for him to peel back the dark cloth from milky thighs and shins, time enough for me to shrug out of mine. Dark eyes lock on my blues and I pull his bared body to mine.

He hisses and squirms against my hold, and my hands stroke hard across his legs, still so cold while half of him is burning up. I nuzzle against his neck and it’s so warm there where my hands stroke stony legs.

His body shakes and he grips his arms around my shoulders as his legs around me begin to heat as well. The pulse of his wrist beating a feverish pace in my ear, his neck’s beating veins suckled to my tongue.

Dark blood running beneath him, and I can start to pick out the veins of his body through pale pinked skin. Tenderly I take his bird-bone wrist in hand, my lips touched to the mottled place I bit into before.

He whimpers as my lips trace the vein up his arm, moving to his throat again, I can feel where it must flow down, his heart… that thing is also buried deep in there somewhere isn’t it?

His hips are feverish under my fingers; his body is burning up. The skin I touch is shaky and heated, and I feel his breath warm on my shoulder.

I can feel the veins all through him too, they’re in his sides where I brush my hands, through these hips and down these legs – they flow a web through the underside of his feet and then back up, it pulsed hard through a place of infinite interest.

He cries out when my hips push forward against his. His nails dig hard into my shoulders, puffs of warm breath against my skin and his hips shift against me anyway and he whimpers in a mixture of discomfort and acute pleasure.

I rock against him and he shifts again with a hiss, I’m so hard and it’s getting painful, but I know I can stand it to see him like this, and hear him a little more.

I can’t stand it.

It’s amazing the amount of blood that’s flooding through these veins now. Every part of him pulsing against me, and that beating is so strong there. It makes me grind harder, and he groans louder, and it all comes around again.

I can’t stand it.

My hand moves from his leg to grip his shaft. He cries out, and I watch dark eyes open at the shock, dark glossy surface, obsidian onyx pools melty and liquid staring back at me, and pale cheeks flush dark.

His eyes shift to some place just to the side of my head, and I move my hand over him, harsh quick strokes, setting a rhythm enough that his hips start to involuntarily flex against me, and that pale face drops slack and screwed at the same time.

Pearly teeth bite hard into his lip, he stifles a moan, so I move myself lower. My hand over his hot flesh, and my teeth scrape against his inner thigh. He cries out, his head tossed back against the earth and the sound goes straight to my burning groin.

I squeeze him gently, and he moans softly, shaky, lying back on the soft ground, nails still clawed deep into the tops of my shoulders.

I sooth the angry red marks I marred across his inner thighs. A shaky groan and the skin shakes softly. My tongue trails up and his breath hitches, my hand still pumped around him, and my tongue moves to his sack – his body jerks and he cries out.

Electric, burning, and it all reverberates straight through me, my spine, blood, and desire grows. He whimpers and moans again, panting as I trace my tongue up his length, my tongue following the soft butterfly fluttering of his flowing veins.

He tastes like stone and metal and musk and earth and something else – thick and solid, fleeting and temporary but commanding attention and makes my tongue numb with it.

I move around him and swallow him down – he howls and his hips buck up to me, my fingers dig hard into his hips and he hisses in frustration. I feel the blood thudding against my tongue even faster and I stroke along him.

He thrashes and writhes, moans louder, hurried huffing breaths fighting to draw in and out as his body twists and turns in it’s need.

His arms lift him up and melty onyx eyes burn at the surface liquid obsidian pools of abyss just beyond, glazed with lust.

These are the eyes I saw before, so alive, life-like, animated – it sends a thrill through me, and though irritated those eyes burn me as much as my hands burn his skin.

I release him and he snarls angrily, but it’s short-lived as I pull him to me, holding his body in my arms – and he’s warm, I can feel the hot pulse of his blood, all through him, everything.

I miss it, I want it so bad, he’s fragile but he’s so strong, and I fight the urge to rip him open and taste it again.

Sasuke groans and his hips flex against mine, “then go ahead and taste…” he growl lips crashing into mine, a momentary violent click of our teeth and then his tongue is in me, and pressed to sharp edges.

I don’t even think about it when I bite down and pierce his tongue. Then my mouth is filled with him, this familiar taste bitter and sweet and metal and winter and so hot now I’m drowning in it.

Hot flowing, melting, filling, and I crush him to me, drinking him in, and he moans into me, grinding our lengths together. Gods, and all I want to do is throw him back and bury myself deep inside him – right now!

“Do it then!”

“What?” I breath as he breaks away, crimson blood smeared just across his lip – obsidian eyes glaring into me forcefully.

“If you want inside me, then do it!” he tells me, in a hiss, a whisper, a growl, a snarl, and it all sound so sexy coming from him.

My mouth seals over him again, seeking out that bloody knot, my tongue stabbing into the wound to keep the blood flowing.

I’m already so hard, I slick myself once with what’s already there and in a moment he screams out, I’m buried deep in him, pulsing inside him.

I can feel every inner vein the walls of flesh clenching around me, the ebb and flow, and I draw his mouth and blood to me again.

Sasuke.

He flexes around me and a growl reverberates from him deep inside my throat, and I buck into him. A snarling and his tongue clenched back around mine, nails digging hard into my back, and he flexes back against me.

Sasuke.

I coil my hand back around him, pumping hard quick strokes as I shift inside him, bucking against him, and he meets me with a moan.

His head thrown back and then burying itself against the top of my shoulder, jaws wide, hot breath panting out, crimson staining pearly whites and pooling at his lips.

My teeth drift to his shoulder, pressing lightly to the skin – so easy to pierce through – and pump him and his breaths get shorter, body shaking and with a scream his body convulses and hot seed pours between us.

His body clamps down tight and my jaws bite down hard on his shoulder, my hands deeper into his hips as he squeezes around me.

Thick red, sweet and bitter, hot and flowing fills my mouth and I drink it in, the tendon sliding around my teeth and he moans, hips flexing against me as he grows taut and hard in my hand.

It’s coiled up inside me too, constricting so hard I can hardly breathe. So all I want is this marked red body, crimson black and white and firm and soft and hot and cold.

I buck to him again and his insides press me more. I growl into his shoulder as he moans, and then his back is to the earth and I can’t stop my body driving inside him and he howls.

Nails gripping me, deep enough to draw blood as surely as I suckle the thick red flowing from his shoulder, dark feather-hair mixed with mine.

Every part of me is coiled tight and moving only to him, the beat of his blood matched with the thudding of mine.

His body shudders and arches against me as he cries out, releasing white heat and sound and crushing around me, pulling, yanking, calling in such I way that every part of me responds.

I’m screaming with him and my blood roars, parasitic bliss, and he clenches down and I’m gone. My mind melded somewhere dark and deep and burning and released somewhere drowned inside him.

Every cell sings with life, and shivers shuddering closer to him, as his body grips around me, every part, and I slowly drain back to the present. My tongue scrapes his skin, and cleans the red away, swallowing the last of crimson into me.

Then I leave him, my muscles straining as I pull away just enough to lie still and pull him back against me. Warm and pulsing, and it’s a wonder to feel his body, heated limbs, twined with mine.

He smiles against my shoulder, almost a smirk, but too satisfied for me to care, and I allow the dawn to come as our eyes shut to await the night.

I find myself completely content, my parasite silent my mind, with his warm form pulled to mine.

`

The sun has died and I open my eyes. My gut coils happily, still sleeping, and my arms clasp around a comfortable warmth flush against me.

A steady thudding sound that thumps in time with my own heart’s easy beating. I hold darkeyes’ body closer to me and breath in the musky smell.

His skin is still so pale compared to mind, but he’s the color of peach and flesh now, not ice or white stone. I nuzzle into dark hair and grin to myself… I can’t even believe last night, but it happened.

-- forgot to breathe. Damn but he’s so hot…

My hand’s on his chest and I can feel it beating. I can feel him breathing, and I hold him close, my legs wrapped around his. My lips wander across his neck, and he smells like winter, spice, all him, and metal and feathers and me.

He stirs, body arching to me; I smile against his skin. It hadn’t been my intention to wake him with just that, but I really don’t care, as molten life-like eyes lock on mine, the abyss is a gorgeous grotto of bright and dark and all plays between.

There’s such a soft look to him, and I nuzzle against his healed shoulder, but he turns away from me. I lie back observing as he stares at the underside of earth above us. His jaw is stiff and I can hear his pulse start to thrum a little faster.

Anxiety?

“What’s wrong?” I ask him sitting up on my arms to regard him. His face doesn’t give much away but his pulse doesn’t. He regrets it… shit he’s regretting it. “Why?”

He shakes his head and sits up, “It’s nothing. We’re leaving soon.” He says, simple, voice level, but his heart picks up even more. Why is he stressing so much about this?!

I catch his arm and pull him back to me, locking my arms around him. “I can’t believe you’re trying to just brush this off.” I scowl. Does it bother him so much? “I don’t want to let you go.”

“I’m not looking forward to it either.” He sighs, relaxing into me for a moment, his hand rising to his chest to feel the steady thudding there. He shudders a moment then calms. “My heart really is beating…”

“Then I won’t ever let you go.” I decide petulantly. “I’ll wear you as my second skin so you won’t ever get cold and ‘die’ again.”

He snorts and I can feel him smirking, “That’s impossible.”

My grip is too weak, and he’s already pulled away. It doesn’t take long to set in, he doesn’t make much noise but I can see it in his skin as that familiar paleness overtakes the peach color drowning it out.

I can see him flinch every now and then as a vital nerve shuts down again, and a short spasm just before I can’t hear his pulse anymore. He finishes dressing and I’m scowling again.

“I still want you though.” I mutter loud enough so I know he heard me, “I do not want this to be a one-time last-time thing!”

Sasuke shakes his head with a laugh and abyss-like eyes focus back on me – black holes that show no light.

“That will be your choice.” He tells me, “I don’t mind the pain, since it’s you.”

Oh my me, did we just get fucking privileges?!

Shut up! Don’t ruin a good thing!

Don’t do something stupid!

I can’t help it! I hop up and hug him to me. I still need to get dressed but I don’t care, I just want to hold him! “I love you.”

He laughs, “I know.” Then with a tap to my arm releases himself. “Get dressed, I imagine we’re leaving within the hour.”

Not cute Sasuke, what about an ‘I love you too’? Hm?

`

Outside everyone’s already standing around, and most of the trenches have been caved in and taken down. I don’t see Haku around immediately though I do spot Zabuza – hard to miss – on the other side of camp with some stuff.

I notice Hinata and Kiba off by themselves towards the edge of the trenches. Sasuke and some of ours are near the periphery with a group of wolves, Gaara is there too. Emerald eyes settle on me, and he smiles.

Now that’s creepy… shouldn’t Sasuke and my smell be all over each other? I can smell him on me, and I’m not even a wolf! What the heck is he grinning for? I step toward the group tentatively.

“Naruto,” Sasuke greets… not especially warmly, “We’ll be ready to leave in a little under thirty minutes. Again, thank you for your hospitality. I hope to hear from you again in the near future.”

“Of course.” Gaara nods to Sasuke before turning to me again. I’m giving him the look – that I-don’t-know-what-you’re-playing-at-but-I’m-onto-you look.

His grin widens and his body shudders slightly as if he’s restraining heavy rib-shattering laughter.

“I hope to be seeing you in the near future as well, then.” He tells me, politely. I’m totally getting used to everything that he says sounding like a death threat. I really am…

Except can’t he smell what happened? It’s not like he has a chance now. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He snickers and tosses his head, “Well aren’t the three of us going to be working in rather close quarters soon?”

“Gaara,” Sasuke starts in warning, dark lined eyes shifting to darkeyes momentarily, a short shake of raven-head and the wolf looks back with a tight smile.

I glance at Sasuke and then back at Gaara. Gaara just looks mildly irked, and Sasuke betrays nothing… they were acting weird last night too weren’t they?

I think your head was too damaged to really understand anything.

Just because you were!

Psh!

“Nonetheless,” Gaara turns back to me, stepping forward, and stops taking a good whiff. But he still only smiles, glancing at Sasuke briefly. “You and I… will be much closer in the future…”

A shiver gnaws it’s way up my spine and I step back, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I growl back. I don’t get how he and I are alike, but there’s something and I honestly don’t think I have that kind of interest.

Bloody animal.

My parasite growls as Gaara steps forward again, a hand ready to knot against my neck, and I ready my out to grasp his throat – but Sasuke’s voice and solidified presence shove an icy wall between us.

“Gaara, that’s enough.” Sasuke’s speaking levely by the intone strikes cold through my bones and Gaara too freezes just a step from me. Then oddly enough he steps back in withdrawal.

What the hell? When could Sasuke control Gaara?!

I step back and ignore the quick exchange of words between darkeyes and the red wolf, since Hinata and Kiba part from each other and she heads back, feet dancing above the ground as she stops back by camp.

She stops by me and turns back to where Kiba disappeared, as the rest of the wolves retreat from the vampire camp ground. “It’s a shame I only managed to document 48% of wolf behavior pattern and mentality.” She says wistfully as though she hadn’t just lost a lover.

“Cold.” I shake my head.

“Cold? Of course, I’m not a biotic creature.”

“No… I mean… seems like you don’t care.”

She looks at me, truly shocked. “How so?”

“Well you’re apparently more concerned with the experiment portion that cuddling or whatever it was you did together.” I shake my head. I can still feel Gaara and the other’s they’re almost a full five miles away now, but they’re moving slower than they need to.

She sniffs, “I suppose I tend to twine business and pleasure rather closely.” She muses. “I have enough data to incorporate his essential nature into an egg if I wanted to.”

I’m not even asking. Hinata is sweet, but… sometimes…

That’s just pitiful.

What?

Judging her? What about you? You’re a sick freak too you know.

… don’t remind me.

But it’s what I live for. He purrs coiling tightly in my guts and then relaxing into the skin.

I’m not that sick… I’d say I’m fairly healthy except for my parasite.

‘Parasite’? Still calling me that? Ugh.

Remember your name already then.

Ugh.

“Shino! No!”

“Sakura! Don’t do that! I’ll give you half if you want?”

Even Hinata jumps slightly at the heavy sound of one of Sakura’s swords thudding into the ground. “I have no interest in your liquid poison – you degenerate twat!”

Shino starts sobbing, “Please Sakura?! You’ve never tried it! You don’t know how good it is!”

“You are not taking Firebrandt into the High Lair!” Sakura snarls at him as she breaks open the bottles in the crate, black steamy liquid flowing into the ground as Shino looks on like she killed someone.

“No!! My Never!!!”

Hinata making a ‘hm’ing sound and then turns to head toward the central group, “That was foolish of him.”

Poor Shino…

I watch the dark rivulets and for a moment my throat aches with the familiar raw feeling that desires more Never. I look away and my gut squirms uncomfortably as well. At least I won’t be turning into an addict anytime soon.

The journey back doesn’t seem to take long at all. We travel even as day breaks, and before the sun reaches the high point the mountains are already in sight. I think my eyes are going to take a while to get used to all the black again.

The entourage enters at the lower part of the mountain and we wind our way back up into the heights shedding armor and rank. Entering into the lord’s branches though the familiar smell of earth and the artificial tinge of make-up greets me.

Her legs slinking toward me, before her slender arms wind around my neck, painted pink lips next to my ear, brush my cheek with a kiss as she pulls back again. “Welcome back.”

Then those dark brown eyes looks back into mine, her pale and painted face looking back at me, dark earthy colored hair hanging to her waist and she cocks her head at me with a grin. “You slept with our dark prince I see?” Tenten muses.

I grin back, my arms locking around her waist. “How’d you know?”

“Keen observation skills.” She winks at me, then turns her eyes to see as a dark figure flutters past with a girlish cry.

“SASUKE!!”

Oh for the love of --!! Not her again!

“Sasuke I missed you so much! Oh --!” she nearly recoils with a stupid grimace on her face, “You smell like wolves still!”

“Give it a day, the smell will be gone.” He tells her.

“You smell like something else too… something weird…” her nose wrinkles and she cover her sensitive olfactory looking at him, he only shrugs before abyss-like eyes glance across at me.

He gives a harsher stare at Tenten before his eyes turn back on me. I only shrug and pull Tenten closer, breathing her in, and she laughs. She doesn’t smell anything like him – but he has a girl, and so do I. It’s not like I’m sleeping with her.

You could fuck her too…

No way. I have Sasuke, and I’m keeping him, thanks!

Oh, you’re into monogamy… you could have a whole harem and you’d throw it all away for darkeyes?

What’s wrong with darkeyes?

Nothing but -!

He’s the most fuckable one here, and none of these guys or girls have anything on him. Why should I try to go after silver and garbage when I already found the only golden block around.

… Fine. Be that way.

Yeah. I will.

I look up at Sasuke again. Satisfied, I could care less if that little twit hangs off him, since I’m the one in his bed. Darkeyes narrow slightly in some kind of detested resignation. “Excuse me, Karin, I have something I need to do.”

“What? Will I see you later?” she whines, as he detaches himself from her.

“Go see Orochimaru, I’ll find you two later.” He tells her brushing her off.

“Later?!” she groans, but pouting turns away.

Tenten smiles as Sasuke steps toward us, and she and I release each other mutually as he steps toward us. “I’ll be borrowing him for a bit.” He tells the brunette female, and she smiles knowingly.

“Take your time. Really.” She grins turning away, with the purse of a lip and a winking in her eyes as she too turns down a tunnel and Sasuke takes my wrist in hand leading me up the dark pass ways.

But he releases me before I can take his hand and pull him back to me. Then he walks a little too fast, forcing me to go faster as he leads me around the winding passages.

“Sasuke? What are you doing?” my voice slows too as he stops after the brisk run through, and I stop too when he turns to face the wall. This hall turns and ends in a cavern area.

Looking around the sides of the area, the whole way from the floor to the ceiling is painted… there’s a series of kings and farther down I recall a split of some kind and war followed.

“This is one of the oldest tunnels.” He tells me before entering the cavern, and I follow after him. I mean whatever place he wants to fuck is fine, but I’d have thought a place with a bed of some kind would be more comfortable?

The walls are on fire. That was my first thought as I entered the cavern, but the fact is that the paint used here is just so might brighter than almost anywhere else, and then dies out as it enters the main tunnels.

Then I’m frozen and staring into a creature whose eyes are both blue and red. His flesh burning up in something like flame and something like blood and light and dark and then I’m inserting my own feeling that the image projects.

It looks too familiar. But he’s not real; he’s a conglomerate of paint and blood smeared across the smoothed stone.

Seated in a throne of flame and blood, to the sides bodies, naked dancing forms, male and female, and on the other hand a river of blood and plate of skinned red meat, still pulsing bits of beings.

My parasite coils in interest and seems to press to against the casing of my skin in every direction, a faint burn behind my eyes that I’m forced to blink back forcefully.

“What is this?” I manage to choke out past the howls that my parasite is dancing to as he surveys the painted cavern through me.

“One of the older vampire gods,” Sasuke tells me levelly, “Kyuubi. Does it seem familiar?”

“No?” I spit it out. Parts of it look like something I know about, but then some parts I don’t get either. Why are parts of his skin naturally burning? What are with those marks that extend from his face to his arms and back and legs?

I have these birthmarks I’ve had on my cheeks since forever, but when I get flamey my body doesn’t get all marked up either. “Should it?”

“Maybe,” Sasuke says levelly, not facing me, he’s been looking at the wall since we stepped inside. “The werewolf deity Ichibi was said to be the younger brother to Kyuubi, that vampires and werewolves were created by sibling deities.”

“Gaara is the supposed incarnation of Ichibi.” Sasuke continues, “My guess based on his transformation then is that the deity has been bound to him by shadow bond.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I don’t get it?

Sasuke turns to me, dark eyes staring into me with a strange look. He sighs and moves to face me but a swirl of mist invades the room and I am given the strong feeling that it’s the gentleman – Orochimaru.

Then the mist swirls out, “I have to go. I’ll find you later and explain, alright?” Sasuke tells me before his body blurs past and he’s gone.

Shit. Now what?

That’s a really cool name, you know.

Huh?

Kyuubi. It’s a cool name. I like it personally.

That’s nice.

I’ll take it.

Take what?

The name! That’s my name!

Okay… what?

Well I like the name, so it should be my name. I’m powerful enough as this guy I bet!

Are you Kyuubi?

Yes.

I mean, that Kyuubi?

No response. Only laughter resounds in my head.

`

“I fail to see how I can help you.”

“I’m telling you that since I’ve been able to suck blood I’ve had a voice in my head and feeling in my gut that are one and the same and occasionally he burns through my skin and just recently he decided to take the name Kyuubi.”

“I still fail to see how I can help you.”

I grimace staring back at Hinata. At least she isn’t giving me a look like I’m crazy even though I’ve tried explaining to her a couple different ways. Even when I think about it I’d think I’m crazy except I’m not.

“I want to know what I am.”

“I conundrum I have been puzzling over since the start of this year.” She tells me shortly before turning back to the whirring board of blinking lights and sodered cables.

“But I have also been trying to repair my baby since then – no thanks to your boyfriend.”

“Sasuke showed me the cavern and then talked about Gaara and the fact that Kyuubi’s brother Ichibi is incarnate in Gaara or something.” I continue, “Does that mean anything?”

“How should I know? If it’s Sasuke it could mean a lot of things.” Hinata shakes her head, still more focused on blinky lights than on me.

“What about the whole wolves burning vampires?” I ask her, “I can burn vampires too, and wolves kind of burn me. What’s up with that?”

She pauses slightly to consider it but goes back to sodering wires and tracing silicon patterns in a moment. “I honestly don’t understand it either except that wolves are biotic creatures and vampires are not.”

“Therefore I could say that your licor level is in fact between wolves and vampires, which is of course true. I ran your bloodwork after all but your licor count doesn’t tell me ‘what’ you are unless I have a known case that the count matches.”

Shit. I sigh, so that means she can’t tell me anything new at all…

“But Kyuubi…” she looks up at the wall pale eyes blank in calculation. “That’s a strange thing to bring up.”

She turns back to me, “All blood limits of the clans and lords stemmed originally from the vampire god, Kyuubi. At least according to the legends.” She tells me, “A little over a decade ago the last descendant of Kyuubi was killed by hunters.”

“I remember her licor count was considered abnormal though I never had the privilege to take the reading myself.” She muses. “His last descendant, a pureblood vampire.”

“I believe her name was Kuu; killed by hunters, no blood of hers left behind. But before now, you have had no association with the High Lair or the Order.”

A descendant of a vampire god… but that also makes no sense. I nod my head in agreement with her, still puzzling it over in my head. It’s not possible though, not even by a long shot.

Both my parents were humans, and if this last descendant of his was killed by hunters without any children or eggs or blood descent left behind then the vampire god line is effectively, in fact, dead.

So it has nothing to do with me or my parasite.

Hinata makes a ‘hm’ing sound and turns back to her computer wiring and sodering. “Maybe you’re just crazy.”

I grimace. “Thanks Hinata.”

“Anytime, Naruto.”

`

You’re really bent on this…

Yeah.

Why?

Because I want to know.

Didn’t darkeyes say he’d tell you later?

Who’s to say he will? He’s been stalling forever!

I huff angrily to myself as I pace through the halls, nowhere to really go, just moving and thinking. I still need to stop in and say hi to Jiraiya too, let him know I’m not dead, but I’ll do that later.

Fine, fine. Well the answer’s probably somewhere in the past you don’t remember. Maybe at some time when you were say ‘three’ you met this Kuu chick and ate her or something.

Yeah, because three-year-old’s do that. They eat people. Heck, it’s what they’re built for.

Well you have another lead?

What if Jiraiya didn’t find me and turn me when I died that time? What if it was someone else? What if-?

Yeah yeah. Who would have known your parents?

I don’t know.

So who looked after you?

I did.

Fine. Who do you know that knew you way back when practically from diapers? Would have noticed when your ‘weird’ behavior first began?

Gee I don’t know. Who do I know that-?

Oh?

SHIKA!!

I plop down into the nearest alcove closest to the surface and whip out the cell phone dialing the number. I can’t believe I hadn’t though of this the second it occurred to me!

Yeah, I didn’t help at all. Really.

Rings once, twice… six times, then he finally clicks on. “Hello? Naruto?” his voice seems mildy sleepy, mildy irritated somehow. Whatever.

“Shikamaru! Did I ever tell you about my parents at any time for any reason? Something I might have let slip when I was drunk or anything?”

“What?” okay he sounds really annoyed now, but I need to know.

“Did you notice anything change about me when I was younger? I mean we knew each other since kindergarden or something, so if it happened then you’d know right?”

“You think I remember when we were kids in diapers if you don’t?” he sounds annoyed, and there’s a weird background noise.

Hey! Hey! I know that sound!

Is that a chick?

“Uh… is this a bad time?”

I think I hear him having sex in the background.

What?!

“You think?”

Oh! That was definitely a girl’s voice!

Congrats… shit I feel like an ass.

“Sorry I didn’t realize you were with someone.” I attempt an apology.

“Yeah.” He grounds out. I still can’t really get it around my skull though – Shika’s with a girl right now?

I can hear her voice in the background too, “Naruto? Uzumaki?!” suddenly the phone’s been snatched and a feminine voice comes over the line. “You! You’re Naruto Uzumaki?! Son of Kushina Uzumaki?!”

Holy Shit. She sounds hot.

Someone this young knew my mom? “You knew my mom?”

“Not personally, no. But she’s a legend!” the girl starts, “You’re a-!”

My heart leaps but she’s cut off, “A what?” I ask urgently, gripping the phone a bit too tight. But she’s off the phone talking to Shikamaru and I can’t really pick out the words too well.

“This is the one who’s with the vampires?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Have you already-?!”

“Yes.”

Her voice comes back on the line, “Can you get away? Now? I really want to talk to you – No. I need to talk to you! When’s the soonest you can get out?” she asks her words quick and blurring together in urgency, “You need to get out of there!”

“Why? Because I’m human?” I ask her.

“No, you’re-- well sorta, but,” She cuts off and corrects herself and cuts again, groping for words. Shit. Even this chick I don’t even know the name of knows and I don’t!

“Why can’t you just tell me?!”

Suddenly the line clicks dead and off – and a cold presence asserts itself behind me. I turn around too quickly and glittering beetle-black eyes and silvered hair greets me, a thin toothed grin.

Kabuto.

“Talking to hunters?”

---

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